JR:
During your orchestra rehearsals I noticed that you continually
asked your players for a more modern response to the musical score. How
would you define modernism?

Chailly: To me it means
that the search for timbre and colour and the identity of sound
in the score should be translated properly. In the past, because of the
glorious sound of this orchestra, there was a tendency to highlight
everything with one sound character or identity. And this I found
selfish and inflexible. I really made it very clear. Because of its
outstanding muscial ability, the orchestra needed to match each
composer's personality with the sound the composer required. This has
happened and is an achievement. If we consider last night's programme,
the "Rembrandt-gold sound" is still there. You could feel it
in the Wagner Wesendonck-Lieder and the Bruckner Ninth. It is
only a matter of using this glorious sound tradition when required. And
in some instances, with modern composers or even Mahler, it is essential
to bring some aspects of his music into the twentieth century rather
than into the previous century.

JR: How does your
understanding of modernism affect your interpretive decisions in the
Mahler Fifth which you now program regularly and recorded recently as
well as in the music of Edgard Varèse, notably in terms of
instrumentation, compositional innovation such as brass and percussion
and finally the social values understood by these composers at the time
of composition?

Chailly: A score like the Mahler
Fifth is a masterly way of demonstrating transparency in orchestral
playing. I hate with all my inner power to read what I cannot hear. I
repeat it everyday and it is a fundamental principle. I grew up with
contemporary music which required attention to overall balance in order
to make the score speak. In Mahler this is crucial. Before my time,
Mahler was played with a much more late romantic approach - sometimes
impossibly late romantic! I could not bear it! Often I would say Mahler
is not the brother of Bruckner. He sounds like it, but this is not the
case. But here, as in Italy, they would say, "it has been glorious
thus far. It has always functioned, so why change it?" This is a
matter of style. We are almost into the twenty-first century in music.
Must we remain so old-fashioned mentally and musically? Mahler was a
pioneer, a kind of pre-Varèse in his own concept of orchestral
sound and the modernity of the orchestration and the intuition of new
musical horizons. That's what I want to emphasize and I do and sometimes
with big surprises. When I first started here, my Mahler Sixth was
regarded as a "monster" interpretation in terms of modernity
and daring and non-respect for the past. Critics and public qualified it
as "abrasive, out-of-place modernism". Today, in retrospect,
they realise that this was a turning point. I was much younger and more
radical in my thinking than today. Now, we are much further along and
less emotional about modernism in interpretation.

JR:
If one takes an overview of your work, Rossini's Gugliemo Tell,
Mahler, and more recently Zemlinksy's Eine florentinsche Tragödie
(A Florentine Tragedy), there seems to be an interest in narrative. In
some ways it brings to mind modern writers such as Proust, James, Mann
and Joyce and their narrative experiments with memory, stream of
consciousness, decadence or language.

Chailly: That
is an interesting approach. I have never thought of that. But a writer,
to add to a list of writers, who could give me a feeling of what I am
trying to achieve aesthetically would be Gabriel D'Annunzio in the
narrative sense, notably in "Il fuoco" as a history of Italian
art from humanism until his time. In a similar direction, I am trying to
define and build a bridge to composers in a historical sense, or simply
filling a gap. The passion I had for Zemlinsky for a number of years was
not only because of his value as a composer but also stemmed from a
historical need we had to profile him in Vienna between Brahms and
Mahler. Until a few years ago, musicians did not realise how important
this man was, if only in terms of teaching.

JR: As
musicians and audiences become better acquainted with Mahler, Varèse
and Zelimsky, how does this redefine our understanding of modernism and
improve performance practices within a given sound tradition such as the
Concertgebouw Orchestra?

Chailly: Well, Zemlinsky was
almost unknown before my time in this orchestra and I think I played a
major role not only as a conductor but also by inviting guest conductors
to perform Zemlinsky's music. I think he should be regarded a little bit
like Mahler, not so much in musical value because this is a very strong
comparison, but because of what Zemlinsky represented as a conductor
during his lifetime. Otto Klemperer took him to Berlin as his erste
Kappelmeister. For many years he was close to important musicians
like Kurt Weill, conducting almost all of his operas, and to Schoenberg
both as family member and performer. Let's not forget that Zemlinsky
gave the première of Gurrelieder in Prague. At that time,
what could have been the public opinion of a piece like Gurrelieder,
the gigantic form and the highly emotional content of the piece and the
modernity of the third part, for instance. So, Zemlinsky for me - like
Mahler - needs to be regarded as a great teacher, a great conductor, one
of the best conductors of his time.

JR: Rossini has
been a significant thread in your career from your early work with Gugliemo
Tell to the most recent recording of Il Turco in Italia. How
has your approach changed over the years?

Chailly: He
is one of the most outstanding composers in terms of genius who
apparently was born a century too late. Behind the appearances was a
unique personality whose sense of humour I always find irresistable.
Although it is rare, I find the way he highlights emotions quite
interesting - the way he tries to open the doors of the heart - the
catharsis. Even pieces such as his Cantatas, considered today as
pastiche which means using pre-exisiting music from other operas with a
change of text, recitative, etc. in order to produce a cantata for a
religious or political event in Italy. Those are pieces of value. We
know basically the opus of Rossini's operas but there is more to learn
in the Cantatas. This is currently a four-year recording project with
Decca.

JR: Twenty years ago, at the start of your
career, you conducted some impressive opera casts, with Pavarotti,
Caballé, Freni, etc. but you were not the motor force behind
these events, which is no longer true today, where in the industry's
eyes you now possess as much star quality as - for example - Bartoli in
Il Turco. Does this give you more say in the overall artistic
product, from casting on down?

Chailly: Basically we
follow my choice of repertoire. Normally, I prefer to record an opera
after a run of performances. That was the case with La Cerentola
with Bartoli in Bologna and Il Turco in Italia at La Scala. My
forthcoming recording of La Bohème is an exception
because of a new critical edition which was prepared in advance at La
Scala with sufficient rehearsal time. In terms of recording, nothing is
forced between me and Decca. Sometimes they propose something such as
the new Shostakovitch film music album. I made a selection of almost
3,000 pages of music written for film. Many are world première
recordings and I found it very challenging. It was a Decca project that
I participated in with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Normally, it's the
reverse. They see what I'm doing during the winter season and we combine
projects.